Is there a way to automatically convert old poser content?
UHF
Posts: 512
in The Commons
Folks,
I have a lot of older poser content that I'd like to move over to Daz formats and directories. Mostly I'm concerned about props\scenes\vehicles. All this stuff is pretty benign, but its a nuisance since its in a different directory tree from Daz.
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If you bought it from Daz3D, double check your product library to see if there is a DS version of it now available.
And I know how you feel. I have so much stuff down in my runtime that I use to use that I forget I have cause I am now so used to using G2F and other DS only content cause there is little or no need to tweak it
Most Poser content has to stay in the Poser format section or they will break and not work. You can set up custom categories so all your content is in the same location.
If you want to be able to display DS-format and Poser-format content together, I find the easiest way is to create categories.
If the Poser format products can be seen in the Smart Content tab, you can create links (aka shortcuts), in newest versions of DS v.4.9, of files into the Daz Studio Format Content Library into any folder structure you want. The trick is to have the Smart Content tab and the Daz Content library on separate panes. If the products are DAZ Connect installed, DAZ Connect product updates are automatically reflected since the Daz Studio Formats content library are now populated with shortcuts.
Shortcuts can be created for products displaying in the Lost and Found category too.
To reorganize shortcuts, use your Computer's file operating system to move files and folders around as your please without breaking any of the links. To quickly gain access to the shortcuts to move them around, select a folder of shortcuts and select "Browse to Folder Location".
The attached picture which shows the pane layout and workflow I use.
MattyManx: Finding newer versions of files I previously downloaded and installed is what brought this little idea on. Sadly daz is incapable of informing customers that it has updated or in any way altered files, so its a laborious process to say the least. In addition many of the older files are not updated. (Some of those are still quite good.)
frank0314: You can still create dufs of files with poser content.
fixmypcmike: I'm not sure what you're talking about. Poser and Daz directories are quite separate. I'd like to see my poser products in the daz directories.
Lindsay: I don't use Smart Content primarily because it doesn't support all products, and its far too time consuming to configure. If I had a script that automatically created a Smart Content database from my files I'd be really interested, and likely use it. As it is now, Daz has created 2-3 more ways to access (lose?) files, yet we had one that worked originally.
If you use DIM or Connect updates will be flagged.
Categories use the database and can mix content types - a quick way to categroise is to right-click on the folder for a product you want to add.
Richard I have no idea what you are talking about. I don't use the database or what ever that is since it does not support all products. Directory access supports all products, hence that's what I use.
How are files created and placed in the Daz directory structure if I right click on a product in the Poser directories?
If you right-click on a folder in the Poser directories and choose "Create category from folder > and subfolders" then the folder structure is recreated in Daz Studio Formats > Categories; you can do the same from Daz Studio Formats. The icons in those categories are references to the actual files, so you can rearrange them however you like, including putting DS and Poser formats in the same categories.
Wow... that was interesting. Is there a particular reason this function needs to merge materials folders with clothing? It makes the database useless.
Not sure what you mean, it doesn't merge them (unless you decide to put them there) -- I prefer to have materials in a subfolder of the item.
I learned this the hard way.
Only used Studio for maybe 3 months, but had picked up quite a bit content. My library started giving me fits. Categories work great.
Scott, You can just sort your directories which is what everyone used to do. Personally I prefer that since I have little faith in the perpetual maintenance of another database. If a database can be auto generated from the existing files\directories then that's a win in my mind.
fixmypcmike: I can't understand how this is better in any way. I have a directory in my library for V4 clothes.
"My Library\Runtime\libraries\Character\V4" Sub directories are all there now. Cowboy Sweetheart is there in "V4 - Cowboy Sweetheart", The props are in the "V4 - Cowboy Sweetheart" directory, and the materials are in "V4 - Cowboy Sweetheart\Mats". To work with this, I load V4.. pick the clothing directory, add the clothes, then navigate to the 'Mats' directory and add those as desired.
If I navigate to "V4 - Cowboy Sweetheart" in the content library and select, "create Category from... " with subfolders i get crap. In wardrobe (where I put it) I see all clothes, so useless. If I then select "V4 - Cowboy Sweetheard" in Smart Content I see every single file, so useless. Some are poses, some are mats, and some are mat poses. Pick one.
Now, if I do that for the entire V4 directory, that's useful, but still some clothes have hundreds of options. Take hellsing for example, 120 icons; http://www.daz3d.com/hellsing-v4
What would be useful is if I only see the props in the prop directory, and the mats in the mat directory. That is how my files are stored. Is there an option for hierarchical display in the database? The way my files are sorted means I have fewer clicks to do what I want, and is very consistent.
UHF: You can do that, and it does work - mostly.
When you search things, or look in Products, all the icons are broken with no preview. Additionally, if I recall correctly, you can't edit the tags until it's back in it's default location. Another if that I don't remember for certain if Smart Content saw it as installed or not.
You can do all the same organization using Categories, and everything works. It's easy, right-click a folder and select Create a Category From - Selected Folder or Selected Folder & subfolders.
If you want to have the categorization with fles and folders rather than using the database, I would recomend using the database Categories only to combine the DS and Poser formats. Create your structure on disk, then create Categories from the folders, then move the items from the Poser-based Categories to the DS-based Categories so they're all in one place. That way you can recreate the categories from the folders if needed.
The only way to do it completely on disk would be to resave all the Poser-format items as DS-native items, which it seems to me would be much more work.
Scott: Search never worked for me anyways. I'm not sure why it even occupies space on the tool bar. The biggest issue with moving content around is that some artists have created content that is dependent on the library directories. 99% did not, and everything moves with ease. No issues. I've never used Smart Content databases since it has never supported all data files. Furthermore, when it first came out it was undocumented, so I continued to use Daz's libraries as they were meant to be.
fixmypcmike... So... Smart Content can't use sub directories like real directories? This is what you're telling me. In the Smart Content database the root directories flatten all content for a product? So I have to guess what each icon means which in many cases will be hundreds of options for me to skim through?
That seems to be the disconnect here.
Is there a way to cause Smart Content to build a database that works like directories from the existing directory tree? This is after all how old school poser\Daz content was handled, and likely what long term users like me would like.
If the Smart Content database can't do that, then I guess my original request still stands.
Smart Content can use whatever category structure you use -- if you set up categories with materials in a subfolder of the item, then that's what Smart Content will use. I personally don't like the way the default categories are set up, so I use my own categories, and Smart Content uses mine as well as the default ones.
Fixmypcmike: I'm confused. Smart Content does not do what you say. I've given an example above where it does not use directories correctly. I am presented with hundreds of icons where a directory has only a few. So the Smart Content pane is useless to me.
However I noticed that 'Categories' in the Content Library does work as though its using directories, and it can be unified. (This is exactly what I'm looking for.)
Is there a way to get rid of all the default categories?
I create categories outside of default and ignore the default categories -- you can delete them but the empty categories will be restored when you restart DS, so there's no point deleting them.
Smart Content will display based on how the categories are set up -- the default categories tend to get overloaded with too many items, that's why I prefer to use my own.
Ayup, that's what I did based on the recommendation of Fixmypcmike and others. Thanks again.
The search seems to work pretty well (better?) in 4.9.
The fact that it doesn't work so well for you may be to moving stuff around.
I played around a little for an experiment. I moved an item (2 actually: Stonemason's Abandoned Cities 1 & 2) from the \Props\Stonemason folder into \Environments. I was able to edit the tags now, a fix in recent Studio release. BUT all the tags disappeared. Once I moved it back to the proper location, the tags were back again, and I could add my own as well. Losing all the tags would certainly hinder your searches.
ETA: On the search, a specific I remember - looking for the Dragon Queen outfit after I got it. I think it ignored quotes around a text string, now it can search on a string. I looked for "Dragon Queen" but my search was full of things with Dragon or Queen. Now I search "Dragon Queen" and I only get the Dragon Queen items. I'm running 4.9.2.70 64-bit.